what does it mean to dream
of oral sex with your father
nearly every night my dad's in
my dreams and we are
battling as adults hand to hand
or i am younger and
we grow intimate, sexually
is it my father i'm dreaming
these dreams are intensely arousing
still of course they're disturbing
beside what's evident how would you interpret them
I haven’t shared my internal struggle here on the blog in a while but the last few months have been extremely rocky for me emotionally. It seems my depression has returned & along with it despair, immobilization & an increase in the vices that I use to cope with these feelings.
I’ve been on zoloft, an antidepressant for the past 3 years. It had been a blessing, lifting me out of a suicidal despair that intensified back in 2006. The clarity & peace of mind zoloft had given me allowed me to restructure my relationships with those I’d hurt so much during the time my depression & rage went untreated. But over the past 6 months, I’ve begun to withdraw & isolate again. I went several months without contacting my mom & sister. Even more unsettling, I never returned to classes after April’s spring break. I’ve also begun to drink more and more often & engage more the compulsive & addictive sexual behaviors I’ve struggled with since adolescence. My housekeeping has also fallen off and my desire or willingness to upgrade what’s become an inadequate living situation has also faltered. I basically only have the energy to care for the girls when they’re here & even that seems to require more than i can often muster.
Back in march, routine labwork my physician ordered returned to indicate somewhat impaired liver function, due almost certainly to the increase in my drinking. I’m drinking up to 4, sometimes 5 days out of the week now, and I can kill a liter of stoli vodka in about 3 or 4 days. I’m still smoking weed also. as much as i understand that it’s harming my emotional, mental & physical health, i just can’t seem to committ to doing anything about it yet.
My routine rarely varies: as soon as the girls are picked up by their mom on Tuesday & Wednesday evenings, I’m reaching for the stoli. I drink until about 1 or 2 in the morning, often as much as 7 or 8 drinks, and smoke while I listen to music, watch sports & send bizarre, disconnected & often obsessive posts to twitter. I’m also usually downloading porn during that time & perusing online sex ads with the purpose of hooking up.
Now that the weather is warm, i’m also inclined get on my bike & head to the park where I listen to my iPod, drink, smoke & look to hook up with someone for a quick handjob or blowjob. If I’m unsuccessful, and sometimes even if i am, i still return home to watch porn & drunkenly masturbate before falling out in the wee hours of the morning.
I sleep until 12, get up to eat & cruise online sex ads or download porn again until it’s time to get the girls from school at 230. If it’s the weekend, I basically lay around watching sports waiting for someone to hit me up for sex until 5:00 when I can start drinking again. it’s only when i’m drinking that i feel content, confident & in the mood to socialize. when i’m sober i’m anxious, withdrawn & terribly, terribly melancholy. except when i’m with the girls…well at least i try not to be. i always bragged about my steadfast ability to not drink when i’m caring for them. but i’ve even crossed that boundary the last 2 or 3 fridays they’ve been here.
the good news is, finally, i met with my psychiatrist today and explained that my depression symptoms have returned and shared how i’ve been unsuccessfully coping with them. he prescribed an additional antidepressant, wellbutrin, that i’ll add to my regimen in hopes of diminishing the symptoms of depression again. the psych advised that adding wellbutrin will increase my energy level, pick my mood up, and return me to the level of functioning i’d grown accustomed to. he even joked that it may increase my libido. great. just what i need. at least the zoloft side effects will counter that so hopefully i won’t be burderned by any increased sex drive.
well, we’ll see…at some point i’ll have to address the drinking too. both my physician & psychiatrist are concerned about it and urge me to find a way to cut back. drinking & taking ssri’s (anti-depresants) is advised against, but i’ve been mixing them the entire time. from what i’ve read though, the addition of wellbutrin will itensify the effect of the alcohol. something sinister in me is looking forward to that. all i have to live for & i’m still not ready to address my alcoholism yet. i’ll see what effect the enhanced regimen has and hopefully i’ll be ready to make some changes in a few weeks…
the unfortunate chris brown/rihanna incident is generating a lot of much needed discussion about partner abuse. chris brown’s youth, good looks & career success is causing many to re-evaluate their perception of abusers. as someone who has physically & emotionally abused his partners, i have a few insights to add. i want to share more of my story with you…
i was raised by a father who was physically & emotionally abusive to both my mother & I. somehow, my older sister escaped abuse, leaving my mother & i to absorb most of his anger and frustration. my parents were young teenagers from inner city harlem when they began our family. i can always remember being terrified of my father. one of my earliest memories is him beating my mom while she was on her knees trying to clean up a mess of franks and beans that he’d knocked over on the stove. i must have been four or so.
my father, like most abusive men, wasn’t always a monster. he had a warm, loving side too. his sense of responsibility to his family led him to join the military and move us out of the inner city by the time i was seven. ours was a close family; people always remarked how we seemed the perfect family, two parents & two children & a modest house & car. much better than what our cousins that were left in the inner city had experienced.
but there was a dark side to my father. his anger and mood swings cast a pall over our house even in quiet times. it was almost a calm before the storm. you never knew when dad would erupt, and when he did, it was terrifying. i was a mischievous young boy who would provoke anger & impatience in any parent, much less a young african american father who had witnessed the horrific abuse of his older brothers by his own father. my father’s own short temper coupled with his upbringing spelled disaster for me: i was punished with whippings that intensified from first a belt & then extension cords before dad moved on finally to his fists when i was 12 or so.
i was so terrified of my father that i would literally shit my pants whenever he’d beat me. but that humiliation was nothing compared to what i would feel when he was violent toward my mother. i can still hear her calling his name, begging him to stop when he would get physical with her. it filled me with a rage and fear and powerlessness that is nearly indescribable. all my life growing up under his roof i swore i would never, ever be like him. i would never subject my family to the terror that he visited upon us.
but…there is a saying that goes something like “we become much like what we hate or fear.” when i got married, my wife was nearly three years younger than me. she was still living with her mother when we met. as a same sex attracted dude, i was amazed that she was attracted to and willing to be in a relationship with me. i didn’t trust that she loved me when my depression & anger prevented me from loving myself. growing up witnessing & as a victim of abuse filled me with a false belief that control & fear is what keeps people loyal to you. my father must have been terribly afraid of losing our loyalty to him. he ensured it by generating a climate of fear & oppression in our home.
it was these attitudes that i unknowingly carried into my adult relationship with my wife. i grew jealous of her attachment to her family, believing that they didn’t like me and would turn her against me. i felt similarly about her friends. in my mind, everyone questioned her decision to be with a same sex attracted guy and wanted to see her come to her senses and leave me. when we began our family, i couldn’t believe that i now had my own family to love and support. with my children i was as attentive & doting a father as you could possibly be, but as a partner i was distant, suspicious, affectionless, & exacting.
when my same sex attractions resurfaced and drove me to compulsive anonymous encounters, the guilt & shame i felt caused me to withdraw even more from her. what kind of man cheats on his pregnant wife with other men? i hated myself even more. what else to do with that hate but turn it on her. i told myself she would leave me and take my children if she knew i’d been unfaithful again. the only way to keep her from leaving me was to keep her afraid of leaving me.
i tried to control everything from what we ate to how she did the girls’ hair. she was social but i was introverted so it was rare that company visited our home. when they did, i needed to be drunk and buzzed, which often led to arguments. still, the first time i became physical with her i wasn’t drunk at all. we had been arguing and it led to us giving each other the silent treatment over a day or so. this one particular mid-morning, she went into the kitchen and began preparing what i thought was a breakfast for all of us. it turned out it was just for her. i became enraged when i saw her eating alone and began to belittle her. i called her fat and selfish and i’m sure i used the b-word a few times. she tried to ignore the verbal assault but i kept coming into the kitchen to taunt her as i was getting dressed for work. she warned me that i’d better leave soon before things got out of hand but i continued to taunt her. with a quiet rage, she came into the living room and toppled over my prized 500 cd shelf collection. i chased after her and caught her as she was closing the door to the bedroom. i choked & smacked her, in front of our small, undoubtedly terrified children, telling her she’d lost her mind and she’d better not ever disrespect me like that again.
realizing i’d lost it, i fled the house. she called her mom & family over and they were justifiably enraged at me. i remember calling about an hour later and speaking to her. she told me she was moving out. my fear had been realized…i was losing my family.
i convinced her to return and of course all was well for a long time. still there was eventually another incident before the final time i became physical with her that i don’t remember well. but the final incident occurred in front of my mother, who’d been visiting us at the time. we were separated then, and i was no longer living in the house but would come by to be with the children often. she’d gotten upset with me a few days before because i’d answered the phone while i was babysitting the girls after she told me not to. i’m thinking, “who are you to tell me not to answer the phone in my own goddamn house. i may not be living here but i’m still paying the rent. i understand that we’re not “together” but still..” that was my arrogance talking.
so when mom visited a few days later for an emergency my sister was having, my wife was reluctant to have me over knowing we weren’t speaking. but i came anyway and i came drunk, having had a few drinks with my brother in law. it was late easter evening but the girls hadn’t dyed the easter eggs from the kit i’d brought. she said it was too late, that they’d do it tomorrow but i insisted. not wanting an argument, she retreated to the bedroom. i turned on the stereo in the kitchen, loudly because i was feeling nice, i guess. my wife came out and asked me to turn it down. feeling myself, i balked. i may have turned it down a notch. she came in the kitchen to turn it down herself. i grabbed her hand and the situation escalated. this time i choked & smacked her & pulled her hair. she fought back and we both ended up bruised. my mother was horrified witnessing this and the kids were screaming and crying. she stepped in between us, pleading for me to stop it.
it sounded just like her pleading with my dad. it was eerie. in that moment i looked in her eyes and she bawled “how could you do this in front of me knowing what we went through?” i caved and began crying with her. i couldn’t believe what i’d done. my ex-wife was already on the phone hysterically calling the cops and my mom begged me to leave before i could be arrested.
it’s hard to write that…very difficult to relive that moment. what was i thinking? hitting my wife in front of my children and my mother?? but i felt like she was trying to punk me in my own house, like she was showing off or something. i didn’t mean for it to get physical but when she reached for the radio to deny me what i thought was my right to play music in “my” house, i had to stop her, i thought. she had no RIGHT to do that, i kept thinking. when she fought me back i thought i had the right to continue subduing her by grabbing & choking.
thankfully, the counseling that i was encouraged to undergo as a condition of regaining visitation of my children forced me to challenge and reject my belief that she had no right to tell me how to behave. she, in fact, had every right to instruct my behavior, especially considering what the circumstances were. i’d cheated on her, repeatedly, and when she discovered it, i was asked to leave our apartment. even though i paid the bills, she’s a woman with 3 young children…as a now single man, i had to be the one to leave. i resented that. i resented her independence, the way she was “making it” on her own. it confirmed my faulty belief that she never needed or loved me in the first place. and i tried to reassert my control over her by punishing her for her “insolence.”
this faulty sense of entitlement to control a partner is the genesis of emotional and eventually physical abuse in a relationship. as a latina woman, my wife was raised to take care of a man the way she did. she naturally acquiesced her preferences in the bulk of household decision making to my considerations & judgment. with my warped perception, i took this as a license to control not only our household, but also her decision making in general. when you are allowed to think for someone, you resist their capability to think for themselves.
it took me years to finally accept my ex-wife’s right to make her own decisions, even as they related to our daughters. i had to accept that it wasn’t my right to control or even guide her decision making. but when i “let her go” i thought i also had to accept that she didn’t love me anymore and no longer felt any loyalty to me. that felt devastating because it confirmed my belief that i was unlovable and unworthy of love.
but it hasn’t. respecting her independence has allowed her to continue to love me now, not out of fear but from a mutual respect. we are imperfect human beings and will make mistakes in our personal and family lives. but we both have the right to make those mistakes and recover from them. i thought i was preventing her from making mistakes by controlling her. hah! an imperfect man trying to create a perfect wife & mother. even in my same sex relationships now i have to fight the urge to invalidate a partner’s judgment and force-feed them mine.
faulty belief systems take time to become aware of and even longer to correct. i’m not suggesting i’m cured in any way. what i can say is that i try every day, to be a better person, a better friend, a better partner, a better father, a better ex, a better student, a better man. that’s what helps me to accept who i am so i can love who i am. as i do that, i can eventually accept being loved in return without suspicion.
fuck the waterfront
fuck doing hair
fuck bickering
fuck being nice
fuck forgiving
fuck the weather
fuck letting it go
fuck doing it anyway
fuck what they think
fuck what they say
fuck what they don’t say
fuck.it.all.
fuck
the house still smells like the weed and liquor we consumed last night
and i’m seriously beginning to doubt
my commitment to healing myself
something i write all the time about
cause when words don’t translate into action
what’s the benefit in the introspection they allow?
well you didn’t say it but i saw when the front wheel rolled off
and you and the little one were halted as you jogged in front of me
you looked bewildered and she did too
wondering how the heck
and what to do
so when she threw her bottle at you
i stopped, turned around, and picked up the lost screw
rode over and handed it back to you
you smiled at me with gratitude
took the screw and with the nut
reattached the wheel and curiously looked up
you saw me smile and felt my vibe
wanted to linger and so did i
silence followed awkwardly
until the baby yelled she had to pee
so we found a restroom to your relief
and then you said goodbye to me
the playground you were headed it seemed
so i followed you there secretly
watched you push her in the swing
and take her out so gently
but my boy was waiting and i was late
stole one last look at you and Kate
you thought i admired how you were with her
but i really wanted your wallet sir
